‘Oh, he’s gone’: Trump mocks Nikki Haley’s husband’s ‘absence’

Nikki Haley is the only candidate running against Trump in the race for the Republican nomination.

Washington:

Former US President Donald Trump mocked his Republican rival Nikki Haley because her husband was deployed overseas, her absence drawing a strong reaction from the Indian-American politician who she said disrespected military families. No one is qualified to serve as commander. chief.

Haley’s husband, Maj. Michael Haley, is an officer in the South Carolina National Guard and is currently on a one-year deployment with the 218th Mobile Augmentation Bridge, which is supporting the Horn of Africa. He was deployed in June.

The war of words between the two Republican presidential candidates began at a Trump rally in South Carolina on Saturday, when the 77-year-old former president appeared unaware of his deployment and began questioning his whereabouts. “Where is her husband? Oh, he’s not here. What happened to her husband? Where is he? He’s gone,” Trump said at a rally in Conway, South Carolina, his first visit to the state this year .

Haley, 52, the only candidate in the race for the Republican nomination to oppose Trump, hit back at his comments late Saturday.

“Donald, if you have something to say, don’t say it behind my back; come on the debate stage and say it to my face,” she told the South Carolina crowd.

“I’m proud of Michael’s service. Every military family knows it’s a sacrifice. I spoke early on about the fact that we need mental competency testing for military personnel [politicians] 75 and up,” she said.

Trump claims he will pass the bill — maybe he will, maybe he won’t, she said.

“But if you mock the service of veterans, you don’t deserve a driver’s license, let alone be president of the United States,” she said.

“Michael was deployed to serve the nation of the United States, something you knew nothing about,” Haley said. “A man who continually disrespects the sacrifices of military families is not qualified to serve as commander in chief.”

Trump’s comments about Haley’s husband also drew criticism from all sides.

“Only sick people kill deployed service members. It’s disrespectful to every military family in our country. This is exactly the kind of chaos we don’t need in America,” Gen. Don Bolduc said.

In a rare comeback for the former president, Michael Haley tweeted a meme that read: “The difference between humans and animals? Animals will never allow the dumbest to lead,” while posting a meme on Twitter Trump’s account was mentioned in the title.

Trump continued his attack, claiming Haley was the candidate of globalists and warmongers who want to spend trillions of dollars on endless wars.

“Radical left-wing Democrats want Nikki Haley because they know she’s easy to beat. She’s easy to beat. Haley supports a 23 percent national sales tax, she wants to repeal Medicare and Social Security…” He said.

Earlier, Hayley started her Beasts of the Southeast bus tour with a stop in Newbury.

During her interaction with the media, she spoke about the lack of stamina of her opponents and stressed the importance of mental competency testing for politicians above 75 years of age.

Her campaign also distributed examples of mental competency tests used by medical professionals, suggesting it shouldn’t be a difficult test for those seeking the country’s highest office.

“I’ve been saying (for months) that (President) Joe Biden is not going to be president. You look at what’s happened over the past few days and you’ll see what I’m talking about. In fact, we'” “Prosecutors say they have lapses in memory, when they’re dealing with people who have lapses in memory,” she said. “It’s not just Joe Biden.” You can look at the same thing: Whether it’s Donald Trump that confuses me with Nancy Pelosi, his temper, the things he does,” Haley said.

A U.S. special prosecutor said in a damaging report last week that President Joe Biden “intentionally” mishandled classified documents as a private citizen but concluded it would be difficult to prosecute him Convicted because he came across as an “old man with a poor memory.”

Special counsel Robert Hull’s report sparked an election-year row and renewed questions about Biden’s advanced age.

“It’s time for a new generation of leaders. There’s no question that the party that fires its 80-year-old candidate will win the presidency. The Democrats are realizing that now. You’re going to see them make their move,” she said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)